The Shadow of the Torturer

Name: The Shadow of the Torturer
Author: Gene Wolfe
ISBN: 9780575114159

Gene Wolfe

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The Shadow of the Torturer

Gene Wolfe

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The Shadow of the Torturer won the World Fantasy Award for best novel in 1981 and the BSFA Award for best novel in 1982. Severian is a torturer, born to the guild and with an exceptionally promising career ahead of him . . . until he falls in love with one of his victims, a beautiful young noblewoman. Her excruciations are delayed for some months and, out of love, Severian helps her commit suicide and escape her fate. For a torturer, there is no more unforgivable act. In punishment he is exiled from the guild and his home city to the distant metropolis of Thrax with little more than Terminus Est, a fabled sword, to his name. Along the way he has to learn to survive in a wider world without the guild - a world in which he has already made both allies and enemies. And a strange gem is about to fall into his possession, which will only make his enemies pursue him with ever-more determination.

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